Xenon Nights
by The Exile
Summary: Something about mimeosome technology causes Wizeman to confuse mims with heavy repairs for small children. After Doug almost tears through the entire Nightmaren population, the Lord of Nightmare decides to make a proper attempt to psychologically destroy the Harrier. Fortunately for Doug, there's a newly awakened Dreamer in town.


Doug knew the routine by now.

First would come the space hopper/opera singer thing with bunny ears. Doug had no idea which dark corner of his unconscious mind this particular imagery had been dredged up from. He did, however, know that you hit it with a stasis field first to stop it bouncing around, then break the ruff around its neck to disable its sonic attack, then lop off its tail so it couldn't get a good purchase off the wall to bounce away once the field went down. That was when you could finish it off. Of course, to do any of that, Doug had to be in his Skell. Fortunately, he had started the dream in his Skell. He was also in a convenient position for an ambush, behind the door of the giant opera house he always found himself in. That was the good thing about recurring dreams: you got a lot of opportunity to practice. It tended to mess up your sleep after a while but nothing a couple of beers and a night-time run around the Residential District wouldn't cure.

After that came the demonic lightning-spewing goldfish. Battles over water were always a pain in the ass. That was why he took the flying Skell so he could hover just outside the mysteriously hovering sphere of water. Of course, half the railgun and missiles systems didn't travel properly through water so he had to talk through a tactical refit with Alexa. At least he had worked out that the lightning sphere things came out of its eyes, but the goldfish was still annoying to fight.

Then there was the flying harlequin jester with the pointy teeth. It hit like a charging Millesaur and was too small and fast to target in a Skell. He had needed to ask Boze for extra training in ground combat but he was pretty confident he now had it down perfectly.

At first it had been kind of creepy to have a recurring dream that was so specific, vivid and had nothing to do with whatever he had been thinking about. Now he saw it was just another weird thing that happened on Mira. It had become like a second training exercise for him, maybe even a little fun. Maybe his unconscious mind had just decided he needed more practice.

Seeing no more threats on the horizon, he lifted off, spread out his Skell's wings, turned the music player in his Skell's cockpit to full volume and soared at top speed across the rolling plains.

* * *

"... And then he cut my ear off," said Clawz. The enormous feline beast, once a terrifying predator with long claws, sharp teeth and glowing eyes, looked pitiful. His ear hadn't regrown yet, his fur was matted with blood and his tail was broken. He gestured towards his comrade, Jackle, who didn't look much better off. His cape was torn, several of his cards were bent and his box, from which he had only just emerged after hiding for his life, was covered in scorch marks, "If you don't believe me, ask the boss. He got hit too."

"You too? Team Reala AND Team Jackle? Can't take on a group of small children?" Wizeman's hands flexed into fists, the eyes in the centre of them glowing red just before they were obscured from view.

"With all due respect, sir, I don't think that was a small child," said Reala, who was missing half a horn and flew with a limp.

"You think I don't know how to assign targets correctly? That I can't use a simple database to scan down very young minds with large amounts of Ideya?"

Dodging a lightning bolt and a thrown boulder, Reala hastily answered, "Of course any mistake would not be on your part! I merely meant that I suspect other circumstances that we haven't considered yet. Either misclassification on our database, possibly a situation we haven't encountered before, or... just possibly... another True Dreamer."  
"Why do you suspect True Dreamer?," snapped Wizeman, grabbing the Nightmaren General and pulling him directly in front of the Nightmare Lord's eyeless face. Reala began to sweat.

"Sir, there have been reports of an anomalously large Ideya signature combined with unusual lucidity and control in dreams," Reala shuddered. Then he felt the hand constrict, adding to the pain of the wounds that even his power over his environment hadn't allowed him to heal yet, "I haven't been putting off telling you! I swear! I only just found out today when that psychopath ambushed me again! I am telling you, THAT IS NOT A SMALL CHILD!"

"Then what is it?"

"I'm sure you're aware that human technology has been advancing at an impossible rate recently."

"Yes, I still suspect outside involvement. Are you saying that they've developed something to fool the radar?"

"I'm fairly sure they actually have those giant flying death machines. The ones they keep pulling into the dreams are scarily accurate. With that level of technology, they could easily develop something that confuses a simple scan to tell whether they're human or not, never mind child or adult."

"So our scans are useless?"

"Only the surface scans, Sir. Any level of telepathic probing would reveal the truth. I just couldn't get close enough without the tall one hunting me down and trying to cut bits off me."

Wizeman sighed, then swung the hand grasping Reala around hard, releasing his fingers at the same time, so that the First Class Nightmaren had to make a tight swerve at the last second to avoid being dashed against a wall.

"Start with him, then. Find out what makes him tick, then crush him utterly. Be a lot more subtle than you would with a child, even a Dreamer child. Assume you're dealing with something unknown and very dangerous," Wizeman sighed, "Which is, unfortunately, what we're all going to have to do until we learn for certain what we're up against. Just don't go from caution to paranoia, do you all understand? We are fear itself. To allow fear to defeat you is the ultimate disgrace."

"Understood, Sir!" Reala saluted. Those of the other Nightmaren who actually had hands followed suit.

"Confirming the existence of the True Dreamer is now top priority. If it turns out that they exist, apprehend, capture and drain Ideya. Always remember that the traitor NiGHTs is still out there and could become involved again if he has a True Dreamer to dualise with."

"He better not try and show his face again," Reala growled, showing off all his teeth, except for the one that hadn't grown back. The thought of personally showing his counterpart what happened to traitors cheered him up a little.

* * *

The next few nights were quiet. Doug tried not to see this as a bad sign, even though he knew full well what the calm before a storm felt like. Mira had bad storms, even some that would strip your Skell's armour plating. Not that his Skell had turned up. It had been missing from his dreams for three nights running, even after the mental synchronisation exercises that Alexa had shown him, designed to, in her own words, 'make you one with your Skell, even in your sleep'. He wondered if she actually took her Skell into all her dreams. Lin had joked that she was surprised Alexa didn't actually sleep in her Skell's cockpit. There were lots of things that allegedly went on in there, according to the fantasies of the male BLADEs, that wouldn't be viable if they were being realistic, as they might nudge the controls. Doug tried not to think about that, as it would influence his dreams and then he would be too embarrassed to look at Alexa with a straight face during tomorrow night's lesson. Instead, he went over some of the routines Boze had taught him, adding a few variations he had thought up, just in case his Skell didn't arrive in time for the stupid rabbit thing to start.

"Honestly," he growled under his breath as he swung his photon saber around, "Who the hell ever heard of a rabbit being this much trouble?"

After a short while, Tatsu appeared. Doug mistook him for Puffy, so he shot at him, but fortunately he had been aiming for a larger, slower target that couldn't bounce as high, so he missed.

"Hi to you too Doug!" piped up the Nopon, "Tatsu brought special lunch box!"

"You couldn't even leave me alone in my dreams, huh?"

"Oh, Tatsu so grateful to have such good and generous friends who even think of him in dreams and give him big tips for such good service!" declared the Nopon, shoving the lunch box into Doug's hands before putting on a pitiful, wide-eyed display of adorableness that would put a puppy to shame. A scruffy little stray puppy with floppy ears.

The Harrier sighed and rifled through his pockets as he inspected the food in his other hand. As usual, it was rice topped with fish and vegetables in a pattern that looked like a Nopon, as if the species needed encouragement to look edible. While it smelled a little strong, the aroma of grilled fish and teriyaki sauce was too much to resist, so he found himself shovelling half of it down. After all, he needed the energy for a potential Skell-less fight, and he usually ended up being the test subject for any new experimental recipes, so he was used to enduring the most interesting of food. After the first agonising chest cramp, he threw the lunch box across the clearing and reflexively shot it.

"Meh-meh-meh! Eat your food, don't shoot it!" the Nopon shot up into the air and hovered with the wings on his head, staring at Doug with wide accusing eyes while shivering. It would probably have worked better if the Harrier's vision hadn't started swirling around and going increasingly dark at the edges.

"Admit it! You poisoned that!" he yelped.

"It not poison! That kind of fish supposed to smell like that!"

"What do I need food for in a dream anyway? Just go away!"

"Why you so nasty to me?" Tatsu flattened his ears to his head and started sniffling and making kicked puppy noises.

"Because I just remembered that you're based on all my suspicions and frustrations about you. Now get the hell away from me!" he yelled, pointing his raygun at the dream-Tatsu. Doug had never seen a Nopon move that fast, even when Lin bought that dinner gong.

It didn't really solve the problem that he was now poisoned, possibly lethally, in the middle of a clearing with no medical supplies and no Skell. He doubled over, his chest burning and his senses reeling, and tried to prop himself up on a nearby tree.

From atop the tree, a tiny blue songbird watched. Its melodic trills were as close to sadistic mocking laughter as its stealth form could manage. The plan was already working.

* * *

A single Skell was parked outside the BLADE outpost in humanoid mode. It had only been a short walk, nestled behind the next hill, but after every single step felt as though he was dragging himself through wet concrete that was on fire, the small, armoured mobile building with a radar dish on top was a welcome sight. If someone was already in, they might have restocked the medical supplies recently. The heavy Skell looked like another Harrier's machine. He yelled a greeting as he let himself in and made a beeline for the medical cabinet. It would be in the same place as it would be in any other of the BLADE outposts. They varied in how well stocked they were and sometimes a division who used the same outpost a lot might leave some specialist equipment behind, but other than that, they were identical. Not bothering with the endless requisition paperwork he technically should have filled out, he practically tore the door off its hinges and rifled through endless medicine bottles until he found the poison antidotes. He wasn't sure what Tatsu had poisoned him with specifically. Calling on his experience of lucid dreams, he tried to conjure up the mental image of a well stocked bottle of pills that was clearly labelled 'Tatsu Poison Antidote'.

He had just finished pouring several of the pills down his throat when Doug heard faint footsteps behind him. Taking care not to make too much noise, he slowly reached one hand across to his raygun while turning his head to peer over his shoulder. The other man was a similar build to him but completely bald. He acknowledged Doug with a silent nod, then went back to polishing his javelin as he leaned in the doorway.

"Boze! Man, am I glad to see you..." exclaimed Doug. The veteran Harrier was exactly the sort of person he wanted by his side in a situation like this. He didn't suppose the old man actually had nightmares. He probably had some kind of anti-nightmare Zen meditation. He probably didn't get poisoned either, or at least had a constant stock of oriental herbal remedies, or whatever the Mira equivalent was. Not that Boze would have been dumb enough to…

Doug hadn't even registered what made him fire the raygun until there was a large smouldering hole in the shelf just where Boze's head would have been if he hadn't easily managed to read Doug's movements and dodge out of the way of the laser bolt. His eyes snapped around and the younger Harrier realised why he had shot at his mentor. Doug's visor was beeping shrilly at him and his HUD, usually unobtrusive, planted two large purple circles above Boze's head, marking him as a Tyrant.

He swore several times, then apologised profusely, muttering some excuse about being ill and a faulty HUD and that Lin had probably hacked his database to punish him for the incident with the baby Caros again. When he looked up for confirmation, Boze's stare was entirely blank, almost ferally so. Doug had only a split second to react before Boze sprang at him, javelin slamming down in a movement that would have gone straight through Doug's chest. The younger Harrier's raygun pulsed as he jumped backward, using a combination of the weapon's recoil and dream physics to half-glide towards the exit. Boze convulsed as he was hit by several bolts that punched through his heavy armour but he wasn't slowed down. He growled at Doug and gave chase. He was relentless and merciless as any other Tyrant-class Indigen. Doug's visor wasn't malfunctioning.

* * *

Maybe it was dream logic kicking in again, or maybe he had just failed to recognise it beforehand because he felt so bad, but the Skell responded instantly when he ran towards it while repeatedly waving his control key, despite him not remembering it as being his own machine. A door opened up in its leg, he jumped inside and pulled himself up into the cockpit. Boze was screaming one of his Samurai battle cries while running towards him spear-first, not really caring that his enemy was now in a twenty foot tall death machine. Doug wasn't actually sure a Skell would protect him against Boze either but he sure as hell couldn't take him in a straight fight. Especially not when he had mysteriously contracted Tyrantism and was taking it really badly.

Doug shuddered. If it could happen to Boze, it could happen to anyone, and if it was transmitted through contact, the other Harriers would be first. It's a dream, he reminded himself. 'Tyrantism' isn't a disease like the zombie virus. It's just being big and scary and capable of wrecking the ecosystem. That's not reassuring, the tall man who regularly went on missions to tactically quell the influence of other species over the planet scolded himself. Just shoot your friend with the main cannon and be glad you don't have to really do it in the waking world.

His hand closed over the lever for the main cannon – entirely augmented reality over sophisticated motion-sensitive controls, of course, but it just felt reassuring to have a lever to pull down or a big red button to press – and a big red warning light flashed on and off, together with an obnoxious low-pitched alert noise, a complete lack of crimson laser death, then his Skell's left leg buckling underneath him at the exact same time that his former comrade decided to jump up, bellow 'KATSUUUU!' at the top of his lungs and plant his spear into the machine's visor.

The lights went out, plunging him into darkness. He fell – in what direction, or which way up he was right now, it was impossible to tell. Pain lanced through his legs as he managed to catch himself on something. Red lights still blinked at him, a mixture of damage and malfunction reports. Boze must have sabotaged his Skell while it was parked. He might even have planned the entire incident, possibly even collaborating with Tatsu. He silently hissed a stream of expletives to himself, not willing to speak out loud in case Boze was still out there, looking for a way in or patiently creating his own.

A high-pitched laugh rang out. Doug felt around for his raygun but he couldn't find where it had fallen and anyway, he couldn't tell where the voice was coming from. As far as he could tell, it was being magically transmitted over the intercom.

"It wasn't Boze who sabotaged your Skell, dumb-ass. He's no good with them at all!"

Doug recognised the voice as Lin's. That explained a lot. He almost felt like laughing. There was something absurd, almost farcical about the hopelessness of it all, as well as at having his every private suspicion revealed to be truth.

"What are you laughing at, dumb-ass? Are you planning to kill me next?"

"With what? Even if I had something on hand to hit you with, I'm in a Skell you've been working on. I'm already as good as dead."

"Oh, don't be like that. You were so close."

"Close to what?"

"To hunting every species on Mira to extinction, silly. The planet even evolved mimeosome Tyrantism so you could kill us all too. I'm last to go, right? But you'll have to fight Boze for the kill, and I wanted to even the odds a little."

"I… what?… that wasn't what I was trying to… this is about the baby Caros again, isn't it? I was just trying to keep you safe!" Doug screamed as the temperature suddenly rose dramatically and another warning siren started blaring, only to fizzle out. He could hear a rhythmic thumping and the snap of strained glass.

* * *

LIN. JUST DROP THIS.

"But I'm only helping..."

Doug looked up sharply. The second voice sounded loud, as though it were coming from something large, not just something with a loud speaker or close by. There was a low, sombre tone to it.

YOU'LL HAVE TO GO THROUGH ME. YOU WOULDN'T REALLY HURT US. NOT DELIBERATELY, AND WE FORGIVE YOU WHEN YOU GET IT WRONG.

"But he wants to..."

HE SAID HE'S SORRY. HE GETS THE MESSAGE AND HE'S BEEN PUNISHED ENOUGH. HE WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO HAVE THESE DREAMS IN THE FIRST PLACE, SO GET TO THE REPAIRS WHILE I TAKE HIM TO HIS ACTUAL DREAM.

"You'll be sorry when he comes after you next," said Lin, like a petulant child. That's not the real Lin Lee Koo, realised Doug.

NO, IT'S NOT. THE REAL LIN HAS A FAR MORE SENSIBLE PLAN TO TAKE YOU DOWN IF YOU EVER DO COMPLETELY FLIP OUT AND DECIDE TO KILL EVERYONE ON MIRA.

"Oh… good," Doug smiled and exhaled. The buzzing hum of a Skell repair laser started up somewhere that sounded far away. One after the other, the system lights came on and went green. Soon afterwards, the proper display screen returned. He was too frazzled to make a cup of tea without killing himself, never mind pilot a Skell, but the autopilot kicked in. He felt himself lift up into the sky and hurtle off at top speed even as he plummeted into unconsciousness.

When he next came to his senses, he found himself soaring across the hills again, but they were bright, garish colours and he was somehow floating by holding onto his raygun. He hummed a jaunty theme as he flew along, waving at the giant cat who sidled past him, then he cackled and opened fire on the giant floating Moai heads and twenty-sided dice that were looking at him funny.

The Skell perched on the side of one of the miniature versions of the BLADE control tower that lined all the country lanes. Folding its arms, the machine allowed itself some satisfaction on a job well done, then took to the skies again. From what it knew of Lin – its pilot didn't let her near it - she wasn't anything like as insane as Doug's worst nightmares about her (most people weren't) but the Skell thought it best to check up on her anyway, in case she was having equally traumatised dreams about him too. After all, it paid to be thorough in a job. The Skell decided it would indulge itself with one last check on Alexa, just to make sure she would be fit to pilot it tomorrow. Then it would go for a wander around the Dreamscape, somewhere far away from the concerns of tomorrow's battles and the awful screensavers some dull-minded programmer had installed in its memory as 'dreams'.


End file.
